falls the shadow
by Medie
Summary: she's supposed to be dead now what? Alternate Universe


title: falls the shadow  
author: medie  
pairing: none  
rating: pg  
word count: 4081  
category: alternate universe  
disclaimer: clearly I am not Kripke and have not been toying with the concept of the boys and their adventure for years. If I were oh the fun we would be having  
notes: written for the mystery schmoop week for **donnacpunk** so thanks to her as well!  
summary: she's supposed to be dead, now what?

_Between the idea  
And the reality  
Between the motion  
And the act  
Falls the Shadow _- T.S. Eliot

She should be dead.

Slumped in a puddle outside her burning house, Mary Winchester clutches her sons close and stares up at the nursery window.

_The room where her husband died..._

John's face flashes quickly through her mind, and Mary closes her eyes against the image, hiding her face in her son's hair. Still holding Sammy, Dean reaches up to pat her cheek, and she thinks she hears him tell her not to cry; it's going to be okay.

She hiccups a sob but holds back the tears. She will not cry; she will not. She will not give that thing the satisfaction.

-

The police ask dozens of questions Mary can't answer, partly because she barely understands it herself and partly because her boys are all she's got left. If she speaks of dark shadows and gleaming, yellow eyes, she'll never see them again. It's insane even to her, and she _saw_ the thing.

She rocks Sammy in her arms, hears him babble nonsense, and can almost hear John's voice in her ear as he tells her what to do.

In her entire life, Mary Winchester's never even so much as jaywalked. Still, she looks the deputy square in the eye and lies.

She's doing him a favor.

-

John's parents come down for the funeral; Mary lets them pay for a hotel and endures their fussing. They need to do something, and she doesn't have the energy to fight them. She lets them take Dean shopping to buy new clothes while she takes Sammy for a walk.

The last few minutes of her husband's life replay over and over in her thoughts, have been for days. It's as if her subconscious is hell bent on twisting the disjointed memories into something cohesive and whole, something which will make some sort of _sense_.

She can't explain what she saw and she can't understand it either. It just is, and she doesn't know where to go next.

"Mary?"

She stops with Sammy outside the flower shop she ordered her bridal bouquet from and looks into the compassionate gaze of a stranger. With what she's been through, Mary suspects she should turn and run but Sammy lets out a happy squeal and waves a chubby hand at the newcomer.

The strange woman's face wreathes in a beaming smile as she leans over and touches Sammy's hand.

"Your boy," she looks up at Mary with all the answers in her eyes, "he called me here. We need to talk about how John died."

-

Mary sits in a coffee shop with Sammy in his stroller and Missouri Moseley sitting across from her. She clutches a mug of coffee like a lifeline and listens as the story spills out of the psychic. Words like 'demon', 'evil', and 'gifted' appear in the conversation. Missouri is speaking them with practical ease, and it should sound insane to Mary. A month ago, Mary was a happily married to a man who adored her but never remembered to pick up his socks and a mother of two perfect little boys.

She looks down at Sammy, watches his solemn eyes watch her.

Invisible hands pat her cheeks.

"So what do I do?" she asks Missouri in a choked voice.

Missouri beams another warm smile. "You already know that, child." 

Again, Mary looks down at the baby.

Sammy laughs. 

-

She and the boys manage to settle down into something that resembles a normal life after that. They move into the house across the street from Missouri who baby-sits when Mary picks up extra shifts at work. The next few months pass with Dean watching a new cartoon and writing his letter to Santa (at least, she thinks that's what the scribbles mean) while Sammy does his best to outgrow every piece of clothing his grandparents bought.

If she tries, she can almost overlook the gaping hole where John is supposed to be. 

They all sleep in her bed, Sammy curled up between her and Dean like their arms alone can shield him from the thing that killed his father. Sometimes, late in the night, Mary thinks she feels a hand on her cheek and hears John humming Sammy's favorite lullaby.

She asks Missouri about it one night when she's exhausted from work and Missouri is pretending at grumbling over Dean's growth spurt as she lengthens his jeans. Mary can't quite believe she's asking because this, and anything like it, has been persona non grata in the house for months. After that conversation that first day, she's never asked Missouri anything else. If the baby is her answer, then Mary's been content (or she tells herself that's what she is) to wait and see.

It comes out halting, stumbling but she manages to say, "I think John's been visiting me," but can't quite make herself to look up.

Missouri looks over her glasses at her, "Well of course he is, child," she laughs. "You think a silly little thing like dyin's going to keep him from seeing you and his boys?"

When she puts it like that, Mary almost feels silly for asking.

-

It's almost May when she sees it one morning, a headline on a newsstand. It's her day off, the boys are with Missouri and she's got orders to buy new clothes for _herself_. The song she's half-singing dies on her lips when she sees it.

She buys the paper and sits on a crate to read it. Beneath the dry comments of the reporter, the story is all there and sends chills down her spine. A six-month old baby, a mother dying in flames, and a hint of _something_ underlying it all.

Mary goes to see the father despite everything rational screaming at her to stay away. She drives over, telling herself she won't say anything about it and makes up a story about social services. The new skirt and blouse she bought is professional enough to look the part and no one asks too many questions of her. She's seen that at work. If look like you know what you're doing, then everyone will assume you do.

Aside from a little smoke inhalation, the baby is fine which is more than can be said for her father. Mary ends up taking him to the cafeteria to drink something that they call coffee but she privately suspects it is toxic waste. It doesn't matter; they do more dancing around his wife's death than they do actually drinking the coffee.

She wonders if he can see the truth of it written on her forehead like the mark of Cain. She's not sure how he can possibly miss it. She should have died that night, not John, and Mary doesn't know why she didn't.

It's just the latest thing about that night that's beyond her.

Reaching out, Mary covers his shaking hand with hers and murmurs words of comfort that she doesn't completely believe.

She gives him Missouri's number; it's the least she can do.

-

After that, she starts seeing it more and more. There are stories in the paper, on the news, in the conversations of people around her. They show up constantly, and Mary can't get away from them. Only a few are actually like that night; the rest are different but similar.

She tries to ignore them but can't; it's as if they won't let her.

He won't let her. 

She tells herself she doesn't know what John is trying to tell her, but she does.

They're not the only ones and there's more than just yellow-eyed _things_ lurking in the dark. 

-

There are nights she's intensely grateful her boys are so young. They're too little yet to understand the insanity she's mired down in. Mary sits up each night in the kitchen with newspaper clippings and half-finished scribbles spread out before her on the table. She's not sure yet what she's doing exactly but she spends hours filling a leather-bound journal with sketches, questions, and the few answers she can find.

It feels like a fast-moving current grabbing for her feet and threatening to pull her under. All the fighting in the world can't stop her from being pulled under, not that she's fighting. Every time she thinks she should, she ends up at her sons' bedroom door to watch them sleep. Dean won't let Sammy sleep alone; he's refused to every night since -that- night, and Mary's never fought him on that either.

In his little boy's mind, Dean thinks he can protect Sammy from all the monsters in the world. His mother isn't sure that he can't.

Watching them, she thinks its a little bit of both. Sammy's not going to be left out.

-

There's a little inn just inside Charleston. It's only been open a month and already it has a reputation and three people in the hospital for unexplainable injuries. Mary takes one look at the news report and tags it as a restless, angry spirit.

"There's something about this one, baby," Missouri muses though she doesn't disagree. "Something more."

Mary cocks a brow at her, skeptical. "It's a haunting," she says simply as if that's that. In the back of her mind, she knows that it's more complicated than that. It is if Missouri says so. In the time that they've known each other, she's rarely been wrong.

Besides, while the clipping describes what's normal behavior for an angry spirit, something does feel a little...off.

"You're going to need supplies," Missouri resolves.

Looking back, it really began the night a demon butchered her husband but that night was the night that Mary finally accepted it and cemented her family's fate.

-

The inn, as it turned out, had three spirits not just one. They totaled a little boy, his abusive father, and a confederate soldier who had died on the premises. The colonel, though dead, still had a smile that could charm the stars out of the sky and a smile from Mary.

She's pinned against the wall, a ghostly hand at her throat when it all becomes clear. A war has been raging in this house for two centuries with one lone colonel protecting the ghost of the boy from his father's rage. The sudden influx of guests that came with the inn's opening proved to be more than the colonel could shelter safely.

The pressure on her neck vanishes abruptly when the soldier appears before her. "Terribly sorry about this one, ma'am," he drawls, tipping his hat. "You best do what you came for, can't hold him off forever."

She smiles sadly at him then meets the child's eyes. He looks like Dean and her heart twists.

Mary pushes the last satchel home in the wall and then she's alone.

-

More 'jobs' follow after that. Sometimes Mary thinks it might be the demon, but most of the time it's something else. There are so many other things that mean many nights away and, eventually, the loss of her job.

That's no surprise; she'd expected it would happen sooner or later.

Packing up the boys, she sells the house and leaves Lawrence without looking back.

Sammy waves good-bye at the town limits; Dean just starts poking through her tape collection.

She winces when he puts on Zeppelin.

-

"Dean!!!"

"Jo!!!"

Voices yelling in unison, "MOMMMMMMMMMMM!"

Mary tries not to laugh when she and Ellen come out from the back to find Dean and Jo sitting on the floor. Dean's holding his nose, Jo has a hand over her eye, and Sammy is sitting between them, face covered in chocolate as he gobbles up the spoils of their war.

"Well now would you look at that?" Ellen leans against the door and looks over at her. She's clearly trying not to let out the grin that's dancing in her eyes. Never let them see you laugh. "Seems Sammy's got it all worked out."

Two-year-old Sam gives his mother a broad grin and waves the chocolate bar at her. "Nums."

"Oh yeah," Mary agrees with a little grin, "all worked out." If there's one thing that Sammy's learned since the relocation to the roadhouse, it's how to play his big brother off of his de-facto big sister and profit every time. It's working well now, but the day Dean figures it out? Well, now, that's not exactly one she's looking forward to. At two and six, her boys are already a force to be reckoned with (Ellen's the only one within a hundred miles crazy enough to watch them) and they're not even close to puberty.

Some of her fellow hunters have trouble believing she, pretty and blonde, can do the job.

They haven't met her boys.

Compared to raising Dean and Sam, killing a Wendigo is a walk in the park.

"Dean," she picks up her eldest and sits at a table, depositing him in her lap. "Let Mommy see." By luck, his nose isn't bleeding but it is only luck. Growing up around hunters, these children know a thing or two about throwing a punch, and Jo probably hit him hard enough that it should have bled.

At another table, Ellen pries her daughter's hand away from her eye to survey the damage and shake her head. "Well, now Joanna Beth you're going to have quite the story to explain that one to your daddy when he comes home."

It won't be the first time she or Will has come home to such a story and Mary can already picture the smirk this one will bring when he finds out.

She trades a long-suffering look with Ellen over their children's heads. If they can _just_ get them old enough to shoot…

"Next time," she calls out with a grin, "Will baby-sits, I take the Were, and you can ride shotgun."

"Amen to that," Ellen agrees. "Girls' Hunt Out and all, it's about time we had one."

"Exactly," Mary nods and then looks at her son. "And as for you, young man, you go apologize to Jo and then wash up for dinner. We're opening up in an hour and you two have your spelling homework to finish plus, those math questions."

Dean looks horrified. "The _extra_ ones?!"

She nods again, solemn as a judge. "It's either those questions or you get to explain to me where on this earth you got a whole box of Mars bars without me or Ellen giving you any money."

His eyes widen further in alarm and Dean does a sharp turn, marching over to apologize. He could be heading for the executioner for all the enthusiasm that he shows.

He gets that temper from her.

Mary smothers her laugh and collects her little chocoholic. She's going to need to take Sammy out back and hose him down to get all of the chocolate off.

-

"How are the boys?" Leaning against the phone booth, Mary toys with the chain while keeping a wary eye on the parking lot behind her. On the other end of the line, the roadhouse sounds like it's a rowdy evening, and Mary grins when Ellen hollers at someone to turn the damn music down.

It's not Dean; he hates disco.

"Oh, well about what you'd expect." Ellen comes back to the phone. "All hell breaks loose about every five minutes. Same old, same old."

Mary's gaze narrows as someone moves across the parking lot to a room, keeping to the shadows as they go. The wariness in her voice, however, has nothing to do with that when she asks, "What'd Dean do this time?"

Ellen's voice is far too nonchalant when she answers, "Oh, nothing much, just caught Dean trying to use Sammy as collateral in a poker game last night." Ellen chuckles as Mary groans and closes her eyes. "Don't knock it, Mare, he was up a grand when I caught him and you should've heard that boy cuss when I did. Don't know which one of the boys taught him to say 'fuck' but he went and learned it real good."

Mary doesn't know whether to laugh, cry, or shake her fist at the heavens and John. She settles on laughing though, really, this part is all John's contribution to their son. "I trust he's equally sorry?"

"Oh, believe me, his behind's taught him the error of his ways. His earnings, however, are in the lockbox for you. Figure you can use it for college money, ammo maybe." It's telling of her life that Ellen's last comment is said in all seriousness. "You watch your back, Mary. This thing's not exactly friendly."

"Which implies that some _are_," Mary returns with a laugh. "Keep an eye on the boys, all goes well I'll be home in a couple days."

She hangs up and goes back to the motel room, crawling into the bed and ignoring the protests of her aching muscles. All she needs to do is catch a few hours sleep before she goes back out again after dark.

Somewhere in town the strega is stalking its next victim, and it's not going to give her the luxury of a good night's sleep.

Mary closes her eyes and slips her hand around John's ring, hanging from her neck, holding it tight. She falls asleep to the feeling of ghostly hands rubbing down her back.

-

"Absolutely not!" Mary snaps emphatically, slamming down the trunk.

"But, MOM!" Arms folded across his chest, Dean glares up at her with the same stubborn look she's glimpsed in her own eyes more than once. If there was any doubt as to which of his parents Dean Winchester truly took after, that look cemented it. "I've got to learn it sooner or later!"

"No, you don't." Pinching the bridge of her nose, she tries to count to ten but gets to five and gives up. "You are not learning how to shoot a gun; you are not following me out on these trips. For the last time Dean, NO."

He huffs a breath. "Yes, I am."

Moments like these are why Mary understands murder is illegal. "Sweetheart," she releases a breath and sits on the car, pulling him up with her, "I don't want you doing this. I wouldn't be doing this if I had any other choice but…"

"But that thing killed Dad, and it tried to take Sammy and you _can't_ stop until you make it stop." Dean nods, thumps a little fist on his knee. Mary idly notes her son needs new jeans. On the verge of another growth spurt, she imagines he's going to need a lot more than that. "I know, Mom." He looks up at her with pleading eyes. "I wanna help for Dad and for Sammy, please?"

This was always what she was afraid of. In the years since John died and she started hunting, Mary's one true fear (excepting losing her boys to that _thing_) was this. "I never, ever wanted you two to follow me into this, Dean," she murmurs, brushing a hand over his hair. He needs another haircut too. "You don't belong in this life."

The look her son gives her when he responds sends another chill down her spine. The kind she hasn't felt since the day Missouri had walked into her life. "Yeah, Mom, I think I do."

-

Jo's behind the bar when he walks in and greets him with a brilliant smile. "Heya stranger!" 

He grins and swings her into a hug when she rushes out to hug him. "Heya yourself, gorgeous, how've you been?"

She shrugs like her mother and lets him put her down. "Not dead yet, which is always a bonus around here." She gives him a squinty-eyed look of scrutiny. "And you?"

Sam stands back and holds out his arms, turning in a slow circle. "Also not dead yet and before you, or Ellen, asks – yes, I am eating my veggies, getting enough sleep, have not been turned into a werewolf, vampire, or anything equally undead or evil okay?"

Jo grins slowly. "It's enough for now. No promises on when Mom gets back though." Her smile falters and his fades. "It's been a couple years, Sam…what's up?"

Sam shoves his hands into his jeans' pockets and looks down at the worn, pitted floor. "He around?"

"Where else is he going to be?" Jo cocks a brow at him, he cocks one back, and she looks chagrined. "Okay, he just got back last week from a haunting in Oakridge but," she shrugs, "he's out back."

Sam ducks his head in a nod then leans over to hug her again. "It's good to see you."

She smiles into his shoulder; he can hear it in her voice. "It's good to be seen."

-

Dean's back and legs are sticking out from beneath the hood of a massive black truck and his hand is fumbling for a wrench when Sam emerges into the evening sun. He walks silently out of habit, but when he reaches out for the wrench, Dean's hand suddenly closes around his and yanks him off-balance

The reaction is immediate, and Sam stumbles, trying to regain his equilibrium but fails. Flat on his back, he looks up at the brother pressing one knee into his chest and grins weakly. "How're you doing, big brother?"

Dean looks down at him in astonished anger. "What the fuck are you doing here, little brother?"

Lying there, Sam remembers the day Mom found out Dean had picked up that word. She was on a hunt, Ellen was babysitting and he grins. Dean couldn't sit down for three days. "What? A man can't visit his brother?"

Dean snorts and pushes away, getting to his feet. He turns to pick up the wrench and goes back to the truck. "What're you doing here, Sam?"

Getting up, Sam dusts off his ass and flicks a look at the roadhouse. No one is in the doorway but he'd bet a hundred Ash or Jo are parked just out of sight, listening.

"We need to talk."

"So talk."

And Dean's conversational skills have not improved with age.

"It's not that simple," Sam lowers his voice and moves to lean against the truck.

"Actually," Dean looks out around the hood at him. "It is. You open your mouth, your lips move, sounds come out and occasionally, if you're having a good day, you may find actual words come out."

"Cute." Sam closes his eyes, counting to ten. Dean doesn't know, and he has to remind himself of that. He can't really blame him for – Sam stops and frowns, thinking back. Hell yes, he can. "Mom's gone." No dancing around it, no beating around the bush, just straight up. If Dean wants it that way, Dean'll get it that way.

"What?" That gets Dean's attention and he steps away from the truck, pulling a rag out of his back pocket to wipe his hands. "Gone _where_?"

"Just _gone_." Sam shrugs. "We had this whole thing; she wanted us to swing back here to surprise you for Christmas. On the way down, we stopped off in Richmond for this dead congressman thing, and she got a call about something down in New Mexico or something. We said we'd meet up in LA…She never showed."

Dean's expression sobers and Sam nods. "Yeah, exactly, Mom's never been late for anything a day in her life."

"You call Missouri?" 

Again with a nod. "Called her, called half the people we know and put word out through them to the other half. Nobody's seen her or, if they have, they're not talking. She's completely dropped off the map." Sam kicks the dirt, watching the dust fly up. "I'm going down there to check it out – see what happened…I was hoping you'd want to come along."

Dean smiles faintly. "So, what, we go on a little family road trip for old time's sake?"

"Something like that, yeah." Sam pauses. "Look, I can do this by myself but…it's _Mom_…" He doesn't mention the other thing; he can't yet. He doesn't even want to admit it to himself much less his brother. "Please, Dean – for her."

-

Dean drives.

They actually bicker over it like two years of silence hasn't passed between them, and it feels _good_.

When Sam closes his eyes to catch a few, he wonders if maybe this wasn't Mom's plan all along.

He just hopes they get a chance to find out. 


End file.
